Some weeks ago
I received a book in the mail from a lady called DeAnna L’am. Her book
is designed to support women who wish to guide the young women in their lives,
be they daughters, grand daughters, nieces or friends, on their journey into
womanhood. She wrote ‘I feel deeply called to bring a message of empowerment
to girls and to women around the world’.

DeAnna’s
book is called Becoming
Peers – Mentoring Girls into Womanhood. It describes the authors
own journey with menstruation and then proceeds to share some beautifully
thought out suggestions for supporting young women in this important transition.

I have attended
a number of menarche rituals myself but I had never considered creating my
own. DeAnna suggests that this is a crucial step on the journey to being of
service to our own young women. I would now add that it is an important step
on any women’s journey to feeling thoroughly comfortable and at home
with her womanself.

I discussed the
idea with the other women of my women’s group. Although most of us are
now approached the end of our menstrual lives we discovered that not one of
us had had any sort of event to mark the onset of our bleeding. Every one
was keen to attend.

Strangely enough
DeAnna’s book was nowhere to be found when it came time for me to prepare
the ritual, so I had to rely on my memory of her suggestions, on the menarche
rituals that I had attended and my own sense of what would serve us all.

I woke up on the
morning of the appointed day feeling strangely excited. I had a busy day ahead
and I wasn’t really conscious of why I felt excited, but as the day
progressed it seemed more and more as if some part of me was very excited
about the coming evening's events.

I found a most
glorious length of red velvet and set up a luscious red pathway leading to
a circle of red satin with an altar in the middle. This was surrounded by
cushions and on the far side I created a throne for the ‘maiden’.
Before we entered the ritual space each of us took some time to revisit and
share what we remembered of our first period. Then we felt into and wrote
down what we wished had been said to us at the time when we shed our first
menstrual blood.

We prepared to
enter ritual space, cast our circle and set our intention. One at a time each
of us was taken out of the circle and prepared to re-enter as the maiden.
As the maiden we were led down the red velvet walkway to the entrance to the
circle. Here we called on all those women that we wanted present to witness
our ceremony. The air felt thick with feminine presence as the women were
called in. Then the maiden was seated in the throne, her feet massaged and
her hair stroked while one woman read to her the words that she had written.
The effect was astonishingly powerful.

I felt as if layers
of shame and discomfort dropped away from me. It was quite tangible. It felt
as if I finally belonged, and was acknowledged as belonging, to the circle
of women. And the power and value of that sense of belonging became wonderfully
apparent.

Since that day
I have moved with a new grace and sense of assurance. I have, almost instantly,
attracted a new lover in to my life and I feel deliciously relaxed and at
home in my femininity. I have become a woman.